No Pain, No Gain - A Mother's Motto

We attended church yesterday - YAY! Why is this such a celebration? The last time we went was on Jan 4th this year - that's right, the day we got married, and made a promise in front of family and friends to lead a spiritual life TOGETHER. I would rather not go into the reasons for not going - but having the desire or strong INTENTION to go does not quite give you the same satisfaction as actually going.

I'm ashamed to say that even when the pastor started calling up on stage "the mum with the youngest child", "oldest mum", "mum with most children", etc. it never quite registered in my tiny brain that it was Mother's Day!!! I was shocked that I could forget this most glorious of days, and disappointed in myself, more so because I had just talked to my mother and hadn't wished her. Back in our school days our dads would take us out to the mall the Saturday before to buy our mothers a gift - usually it was a gift basket of chocolate or cupcakes and the like, one that we (my brother and I) could indulge in. I once got my mum a coffee mug which had Snoopy (of Peanuts) standing in front of the mirror and flexing his arm muscles - the caption said "World's Greatest Body". I dunno how my mother took it because, well, her body is of rather generous proportions - I was an awful teen and an even more awful daughter. She laughed and said, "Hmmm you're making fun of me aren't you?" I answered with a grin. The best part was in church when Mothers were honoured with flowers and chocolate and were invited to tea (which was a lot more than just tea) in the church hall. The children would steal in to grab the yummy cakes and pies. But more than anything - it was a day when we saw our mothers smile together at each other, a knowing smile that only one who has gone through the pains of having a child will understand.

What is really weird is that I was speaking to my mother after ages yesterday and she called a few minutes before we were ready to leave for church. We chatted for more than a half hour even though I knew we would be late. I didn't want the conversation to end, and I was glad it didn't because we were just in time to hear the most important parts of the service. I loved this inspiring service yesterday - filled with warm anecdotes and a hilarious video any mum and child can relate to in one form or another. I was so inspired that I pulled out my cell phone and smsd all my friends who were mums to wish them (this caused a huge fight later with my husband who did not approve of me sending out an sms during the service - even though I TOLD him we should leave our phones in the car. When I'm inspired I just gotta get moving and I stuck to my story even though I knew I was wrong). What is strange is that the friend who replied first was the one I had the least contact with. Many hours later, a childhood friend, one with whom I have had many "Mother's Day Shopping" sessions, sent me a msg wishing me the same on behalf of Hyde :O), and the third msg came from another good college friend who was actually in labour while I was sending her the msg! She wasn't due for another ten days and is now blessed with a baby boy! Congrats again Sne!

I have begun a post called "Conversations with my Mother" but have yet to complete it. I leave you now with a few quotes about mothers - because it is always my feeling that if another person can say it better, then they SHOULD! May God bless my Mother, and may He bless yours too!

P.S.: Watch the video - totally worth it!
* Image courtesy Google Images


Some had me smiling:

• A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan
• Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. ~Ambrose Bierce
• A daughter is a mother's gender partner, her closest ally in the family confederacy, an extension of her self. And mothers are their daughters' role model, their biological and emotional road map, the arbiter of all their relationships. ~Victoria Secunda

Some had me nodding in agreement:

• I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln
• The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac
• She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along. ~Margaret Culkin Banning
• When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty
• Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort. ~John Lancaster Spalding

Some had me going "hell yeah!":

• The phrase "working mother" is redundant. ~Jane Sellman
• Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987
• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

Some had me laughing out loud:

• Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. ~Aristotle
• It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~From the television show The Golden Girls

This is a reason why I can do the same thing today:

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage. ~Robert Fulghum

This one is for Nisha:

• The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

This one is for Elizabeth:

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This is my mother:

• A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. ~Washington Irving

This, is Universal:

• God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb